Miskitu

This chapter examines the intersection of anti-Central American immigration policy and the long-standing neoliberal relationship of the United States with Central America, which entails economic impoverishment and militarization of the isthmus by the United States...

Local abuses in Central America link to a broader system of U.S. neocolonial policies that construct Central American lives as disposable in Central America, through Mexico, and within U.S. borders. This chapter considers the current regime of social death for Central Americans and, more specifically, men as a racialized gender aggregate who endure labor violence. The Donald Trump administration's misogynist necropolitical stance hearken to the United States' policies in Central America throughout the twentieth century, which funded genocidal wars and motivated out-migration. I provide historical context for the deadly politics of the present and examine a case study in Nicaragua as part of a historical and geographic continuum of U.S. social death. Since my focus is on an Afro-Indigenous group in Central America, we can ask: What does the sweet-lobster industry killing Miskitu men in Nicaragua have to do with North America, and what does Miskitu fishermen dying in Nicaragua have to do with Central American immigration?

...Rather than epistemically delink the region through disciplinary divides, I approach Nicaragua and the United States as deeply interrelated political, economic, and ecological spaces. This allows an exploration of Miskitu social death in lobster commercial fishing as an expression of racial and gender settler (neo)colonialism, which is profoundly related to anti–Central American U.S. immigration policy. Since social death is a lateral stratification by race, class, gender, and citizen marginality from the Global South to the Global North, workers who stay in their countries of origin in the isthmus remain part of the movement of labor and resources heading north. By relating Miskitu fishermen’s labor violence in Nicaragua to the plight of immigrants from Central America, I aim to reveal neoliberalism, forced migration, and U.S. policy as racialized forms of anti–Central American social death. This regime of social death is a continued expression of settler (neo)colonialism, which hinges on the dispossession and extermination of Afro–Latin American and Indigenous populations.

Between 1850 and the Great Depression more than 300 thousand Chinese migrants arrived in Latin America and the Caribbeen. They arrived via two main migration models. Between the 1840s and 1880s, the majority of Chinese immigrants and the majority of Chinese immigrants over all arrived as contracted ‘coolie’ labor. Before the mid-1800s and after 1880, most Chinese migrants arrived a merchant entrepreneurs, seeking out opportunities to startup businesses in liberal western societies, away from the political, bureaucratic, and social restrictions of China. The majority of these migrants, merchant and coolie, came from the Southern Chinese provinces of Fujian and Guangdong. Some of these migrants found their way to Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua (Miskitu Coast) where they settled widely and came to dominate the commercial economies of departmental capitals, as well as mining, lumber, and banana towns, and ports.
The purpose of this paper is to explore and better understand the origins of the Chinese diaspora on the Miskitu coast from the late-1800s through the early years of the Sandinista revolution. I focus on the models mentioned above to understand what factors pushed these Chinese migrants out of China and what factors pulled them into Latin America and the Caribbean. I then explore possible sources and dispersion of the Chinese diaspora on the Miskitu Coast. Unlike many Latin American countries, the early Chinse diaspora in Nicaragua was divided into two distinct populations on the Pacific and Caribbean coasts - likely due to the heavy British, then North American, influence in the Caribbean region, Spanish and Mestizo domination on the Pacific, and weak communication and transportation links between the two areas. While Chinese migrants, primarily from Taiwan and Hong Kong, continued to arrive to the Pacific Coast after WWII, the majority of Chinese immigrants to the Caribbean Coast arrived between the 1880s and the Great Depression in conjunction with the peak of what is referred to as the “company

In 1987, seeking to address one of the myriad issues at stake in the Contra War, the Sandinista government in Nicaragua granted limited political autonomy to the primarily indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of the Atlantic Coast. This book, based on ethnographic research with stakeholders and residents of the Northern Atlantic Autonomous Region in 1995, analyzes the history of the region and the successes and failures of the autonomy process. A new preface introduces the second edition (2016), noting the continued challenges facing the Atlantic Coast more than two decades later.

El presente estudio surge de la necesidad de profundizar sobre el tema de la justicia indígena y las autoridades tradicionales en la RAAN, y de producir un documento que nos ayudara tanto a comprender el estado de desarrollo, debilidades y fortalezas del sistema de justicia indígena y sus autoridades tradicionales, como para plantear una serie de recomendaciones destinadas a fortalecer la justicia indígena y sus autoridades tradicionales.

A political ecological research orientation elucidates the effects of Miskito wage work
in the Honduran lobster export industry. Miskito wage labor conserves local rain forest by
displacing agricultural deforestation pressure into wages. These wages, however, are
earned in an industry that depletes Caribbean lobster populations and which increases risk
of injury and death to divers.

Une approche théorique basée sur une orientation de recherche politico-écologique
clarifie les effets du travail salarié des Miskito dans l'industrie d'exportation du homard au
Honduras. Du fait que les salaires diminuent le besoin d’argent, le travail salarié diminue
le déboisement aux buts agricoles et préserve la forêt vierge. Cependant les salaires
générés par cette industrie contribuent de façon significative à diminuer la population de
homards dans les Caraïbes et augment la risque d'accidents et de dangers de mort parmi
les plongeurs.

Una investigación desde la perspectiva de la ecología política es ulitizada para explicar
los efectos de trabajos jornales en la industria pesquera de exportación de langostas en
Honduras. Entre los Miskito el dinero que viene de trabajos jornales ayuda a reducir las
presiones de desforestación agrícola y a a conservar los bosques tropicales locales. De
cualquier modo, estos sueldos se ganan en una industria que disminuye las poblaciones de
langostas del caribe y que aumentan los riesgos a los buzos de graves lesiones or muerte.

El presente artículo trata de explicar la movilización de un número significativo de indígenas mayangnas en contra del gobierno sandinista. Se sugiere que no obstante del compromiso sandinista para mejorar las condiciones de los grupos étnicos de la Costa Atlántica, su incapacidad para comprender las relaciones de poder desiguales entre estos mismos grupos indujo al pueblo mayangna hacia el creciente conflicto entre los sandinistas y miskitos. Los violentos excesos de los sandinistas presionaron a los mayangnas a fortalecer su alianza con los miskitos a pesar de la tradicional enemistad entre ellos. Con el tiempo los sandinistas pudieron persuadir a los mayangnas a desmovilizarse, pero sólo mediante la modificación de algunos aspectos de su propia ideología nacionalista.

Peoples of East-Asia have consumed jellyfish for over a thousand years. For much of this time, China has been the main supplier and consumer. Economic and environmental forces today are driving this market out of China and into societies with no history of jellyfish production or consumption. In this paper, I report on the emerging jellyfish industry along the Nicaraguan Miskitu Coast. Here, jellyfish processing is controlled by Chinese merchants, and the product is almost exclusively for markets in East-Asia. Although the industry is just beginning in Nicaraguan, it does appear to have significant impacts on the local economy and society. Most significantly, the industry is creating an annual economic boom during the jellyfish season, providing wage-earning opportunities for Miskitu men other than lobster-diving, a dangerous and often deadly occupation; and for Miskitu women who often do not have access to formal employment. At the same time, the nature of the resource is such that predicting yields from year to year is difficult, and the low price paid per pound advantages those with access to motorized pangas and economies of scale.  This research was conducted over the course of four weeks from (July to August 2015) in and around the communities of Bilwi and Tuapi Nicaragua.

Con el fin de investigar cualitativamente las actitudes lingüísticas de los miskitus bilingües y la transmisión del español y miskitu a los niños, se llevaron a cabo 10 entrevistas sociolingüísticas y 27 encuestas escritas. Los resultados indican que el español se percibe como una lengua más universal que el miskitu y el orgullo miskitu se puede expresar de muchas formas aparte del idioma. Además, los hablantes de español como primera lengua suelen evocar la dinámica del poder entre las lenguas, aunque los hablantes de miskitu como primera lengua no crean en la misma relación jerárquica. Estas actitudes diferentes provocan consecuencias prácticas: es menos probable que el miskitu sea transmitido a los hijos si los padres adquirieron el español antes del miskitu, lo cual plantea una amenaza potencial para el futuro de la lengua miskitu en las ciudades de la Costa Atlántica.

This paper explores first hand perceptions of Nicaraguan Miskitu women’s role in their local economy. Attention is paid to how economic practices have changed over time and whether change spurred by outside influences – such as corporate ventures and NGOs – have eroded the authenticity of an indige-nous economy. Some historical economic practices are explored with a focus on the post-war economy and how political autonomy has affected women’s role. Surveys of Miskitu women obtained during field research, with support from relevant literature, comprise the main source of information considered.

Perceptions of physical attractiveness vary across cultural groups, particularly for female body size and shape. It
has been hypothesised that visual media propagates Western ‘thin ideals’. However, because cross-cultural
studies typically consider groups highly differentiated on a number of factors, identifying the causal factors has
thus far been impossible. In the present research, we conducted ‘naturalistic’ and controlled experiments to test
the influence of media access on female body ideals in a remote region of Nicaragua by sampling from villages
with and without regular television access. We found that greater television consumption remained a significant
predictor of preferences for slimmer, curvier female figures after controlling for a range of other factors in an
ethnically balanced sample of 299 individuals (150 female, aged 15-79) across 7 villages. Within-individual
analyses in one village over 3 years also showed an association between increased TV consumption and
preferences for slimmer figures amongst some participants. Finally, an experimental study in two low-media
locations demonstrates that exposure to media images of fashion models can directly impact participants’ body
size ideals. We thus provide the first converging cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental evidence from
field-based research, that media exposure can drive changes in perceptions of female attractiveness.

Historically, the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua has been a multilingual and multicultural region isolated from the homogenizing effect of Spanish colonization. The Spanish spoken along the Atlantic Coast has been described as a dialect divergent from Western Nicaraguan Spanish, and one commonly cited difference is the stop-like realization of intervocalic /d/. However, in recent decades demographic shifts have resulted in greater contact with monolingual Spanish speakers from the West, and the present study uses realizations of intervocalic /d/ as a litmus test to determine whether young Miskitu-Spanish bilinguals in Bilwi are maintaining a distinct coastal dialect of Spanish or converging on national Nicaraguan norms. The results of a mixed-effects linear regression model using relative intensity as a measure of /d/ constriction show no significant differences between the young bilinguals in Bilwi and the monolinguals from Managua, suggesting that the unique coastal dialect is receding among younger speakers, whose Spanish phonological system is increasingly monolingual-like.

The polarized scholarly discourse of the Cold War in Central America overstated the extent to which Protestant Moravianism shaped Miskitu ethnic and cultural identity in the 20th century by defining
Miskitu agency in terms of Anglo affinity and incompatibility with Hispanic culture. This exaggerated position is revealed through the hidden history of liberation theology among the Miskitu and has
implications for the manner in which scholars continue to view the Miskitu-Sandinista conflict of the 1980s, Miskitu ethnic identity and history in general, and the continuing debate over the definition and implementation of Atlantic Coast autonomy in Nicaragua in a postmulticultural era.

In July of 1633, Captain Sussex Camock set sail from London with 50 odd men to establish an English outpost on the mainland of Central America. His voyage was sponsored by members of the Providence Island Company, recent founders of a Puritan colony on two small islands 150 miles off the coast of Nicaragua. Company adventurers—so called because they ventured their capital—instructed Captain Camock to establish a “Colony upon the Mayne” and to start a trade with local Indians. The group was directed to “carry themselves wislie and modestlie towards the Indyans, for the honor of our Religion and nation”. They were to endear themselves “to the Indyans … and by some reasonable guise to winn their Friendship”. In case the Indians did not have sufficient commodities to trade, Camock’s men were implored to investigate the region for any and all potential resources, “or to give ye full Intelligence of the possibilities of that designe”. The adventurers specifically sought information about:

Silk-grass, Gum of pine Tree, Lignum vitae, and other Gums, Anotto or Tomarin. Skins of all Beasts that have any ffurre, or may seem vendible. Cassia Fustula, Sarsaperilla, Guacum, Mecoachan or wild potatoes. Red oil, Wax and honey. Contra Yerva which is an Antidote against poison of Serpents and arrows, and by that means it may be discovered. Or what other Antidotes you shall find in the Country. Bezar stone, Manatee stones, the stone of Alligator's head.

In early modern Europe these instructions reflect and underscore the puritan belief that “commerce held the key to improvement of natural knowledge” and, as historian Roy MacLeod has emphasized, that “[c]olonialism and science together combined the dictates of piety and patriotism”. Indeed, if the primary purpose of colonizing the Central American mainland was to access what Londa Schiebinger has called “green gold”, then the above account suggests that resource acquisition was mutually entangled with Protestant evangelism, English nationalism, empirical science, and indigenous knowledge and cooperation. This paper explores these interconnections during the short existence of the Providence Island colony, effectively 1629-1641.

This article examines the Miskitu peoples' efforts to gain equal rights in mid-20th-century Nicaragua through a discourse of citizenship within the larger ideological framework of Latin American mestizaje (interracial and intercultural mixing as the basis for Latin American identity in refutation of European and/or Anglo-American values). Specifically, it explores Miskitu recollections and reactions to Nicaraguan efforts to integrate them into the national identity through an indigenist program known as the Río Coco Pilot Project for Basic Education. Acknowledging Miskitu accommodation and even embrace of this assimilationist project provides an alternative interpretation of 20th-century indigenous social activism and validates an earlier Miskitu generation's achievements in advancing the cause of Miskitu social and political equality in Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast region before the era of multicultural autonomy.

The predominant Mayangna narrative of the Nicaraguan Civil War holds that the Miskitu 'tricked' them into joining the conflict. However, I argue here that the Mayangna leadership and the Sandinista government were also responsible, as Sandinista denial of the importance of ethnic difference in Nicaragua allowed Miskitu nationalists, using the language of the religion, to co-opt Mayangna leaders, while subsequent Sandinista violence turned Mayangna civilians against the Revolution. Accusations of 'trickery' stem from later Mayangna disillusion with the war and from problems with the autonomous political system set up in its wake, which encourages the Mayangna to underplay the role of their own leaders and the Sandinista government in embroiling them in the conflict. This one-sided narrative, however, increasingly defines Mayangna interpretations of their very identity as a people.

This essay examines the local politics of indigenous activism among Nicaragua’s Miskito population before and after that country’s Sandinista Revolution. It recounts details of the transformation of Miskito political representation in the wake of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution and immediately prior to the Miskito rebellion of the 1980s. Perspectives presented here are of Miskito activists of the pre-revolutionary and pre-rebellion era. These are perspectives that in the 1980s were silenced by intraethnic political rivals among
the Miskito leadership and by a complicit Western scholarship that at the time was engaged in promoting subaltern voice in Central America as stories of ethnic
rebellion. In revising accounts of a local political power struggle, this essay examines the process of history creation in an indigenous community. By including
alternative perspectives and reviving previously silenced voices in Nicaragua, it more broadly charts the evolution of oral history as methodology since its popularization in the area of Central American indigenous studies in the 1980s.

Starting from a discussion of theoretical and conceptual approaches to revitalization and millenarianism the present article discusses a religious salvation movement, which spread among Miskitu Indians and Afroamericans on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast in 1881/1882. Although massive social change induced by Missionary work and the spread of the money economy provided a common background, it is shown that the movement had different causes with the two groups. Whereas the movement can be interpreted as a reaction to the growing social differentiation within the Afroamerican population and the discrimination of lower class culture, it also has to be seen as an attempt to overcome a deep social as well as cultural crisis by the Miskitu Indians.

While many governments of Third World* states have recognized indigenous people's au-tonomy  rights  and  accepted  sustainability  as  a  development  goal  in  international  agree-ments, national constitutions and laws, actual policies often contradict both aims. Biolog-ical resources are considered primarily as usable goods to be deployed to their maximum. Consequently, the control of indigenous lands is often disputed by states and private in-terests and policies still foster economic models based on the exploitation of natural re-sources for exportation. With its particular rich biodiversity, extended forest areas and the presence of various indigenous groups, Middle America is a particular interesting example of the abovementioned general trends. Mega-projects of roads, ports, mining, tourist cen-tres,  and  export  agriculture  are  causing  serious  environmental  damage  and  threaten  in-digenous land rights.  Political and academic discussions of sustainability do often pay insufficient attention to social  structure  and  power  relations.  While  "indigenous"  or  "traditional"  resource  man-agement systems (such as communal land holding) are frequently considered particularly sustainable, this is not necessarily the case. The latter quality is not due to some essence or world view indissolubly linked to a certain kind of people but to non-capitalist forms of production that aim at satisfying subsistence needs and not accumulation.

En su importante libro, The Anglo-Spanish Struggle for Mosquitia de 1967, el historiador estadounidense Troy Floyd afirma que “el evento más importante para la historia centroamericana fue la ocupación inglesa [puritana] de la costa de Cabo Gracias a Dios” en 1633 (p. 18). Según Floyd el evento activa la llegada de Africanos a la costa oriental de Centroamérica y también la formación de un pueblo Afro-indígena denominado “zambos-mosquitos,” un pueblo vehementemente opuesto a la autoridad española, centroamericana y nicaragüense durante los siguientes tres siglos (algunos dirían hasta el día de hoy). Es cierto que los mosquito y su formación étnica están entrelazados con sus relaciones comerciales con los europeos del norte en los siglos XVII y XVIII, incluyendo los ingleses puritanos, pero conocemos muy poco de los detalles de tales relaciones en los primeros tres cuartos del siglo XVII. De hecho ni siquiera sabemos de dónde o como viene el nombre mosquito. Los ingleses y los españoles no usaron tal nombre al referirse a un grupo étnico hasta los 1670s y 1690s respectivamente, aunque historiadores (como el mismo Floyd) confunden la situación al referirse a los zambos-mosquitos por tal nombre mucho antes de que pueda ser confirmado en los documentos históricos. Entonces, aunque tenemos muchas historias del siglo XVIII sobre el origen del pueblo mosquito—y aunque no son todas compatibles—tenemos poca evidencia de la primera mitad del siglo XVII. Propongo examinar el origen del nombre mosquito—y un poco del origen étnico del pueblo mosquito—a través de mapas europeos del siglo XVI y XVII. Si tomamos en cuenta que los puritanos de la isla Santa Catalina (Providencia) incorporaron sus conocimientos geográficos y cartográficos a los mapas de las indias occidentales, podemos contemplar dos conclusiones que se apoyan mutuamente. Primero, aunque el nombre étnico mosquito no aparece en los documentos históricos (incluyendo los de los puritanos), sí aparece como toponimia en algunos mapas del siglo XVI (y en documentos de los puritanos). Segundo, aunque los colonos puritanos hicieron por lo menos dos mapas de la costa centroamericana que no se encuentran hoy día, ellos contribuyeron información geográfica que si fue incorporada en los mapas de los cartógrafos de la Compañía Holandesa de las Indias Occidentales. Comparando los mapas del siglo XVI con unos del siglo XVII es claro que la toponimia antecede a la llegada de los puritanos. La interacción europeo-indígena es la razón por la cual la toponimia mosquito fue asignada al pueblo Afro-indígena zambo-mosquito—denominación que luego se convertiría en la toponimia asignada a toda la gente que hablaba el idioma mosquito y que se pensaron como mosquito. La importancia del argumento no es la resolución de una cuestión anticuaria sino que implica una profundización histórica de las relaciones iniciales entre los indios de la costa al sur del Cabo Gracias a Dios, los africanos que se establecieron al norte del mismo Cabo y los ingleses y los holandeses de Santa Catalina en las primeras décadas del siglo XVII, argumento que permite interpretar la gran evidencia cartográfica histórica disponible pero hasta ahora dejada en la negligencia.

This paper draws from my participation in mapping Miskitu community land claims in the Spring of 1997 to discuss the relationship between the mapping process and an identity politics of place in northeastern Nicaragua (the Moskitia). In community fora that formed the critical element of the mapping process, Miskitu community intellectuals passionately narrated Miskitu history with recourse to Moskitia geography and the places to be mapped. These public narratives resonated with and mobilized community audiences because they combined authoritative Miskitu identity signifiers such as the Miskitu flag and biblical lessons with commonplace toponyms and cultural landscapes. In the process of narrating the relationship of Miskitu identity to Moskitia places, community intellectuals simultaneously critiqued the conventional wisdom of Nicaraguan historiography and transformed the initial aim of the mapping project by shaping the meaning of ‘community lands’ for community members. In this way the mapping project merged a cultural politics of place with those of identity.

In north-eastern Nicaragua, territorial titling of communal lands conflates particular notions of ethnicity with proprietary conceptions of space to generate new forms of conflict within and between indigenous and black communities, and with mestizo migrants. Notions of rights between competing groups, or within conflicting normative frameworks, become increasingly polemic during demarcation. While analysis of three land titling case studies demonstrates that results are socially contingent and place based, trends include: (a) power disparities; (b) tension between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ patterns of land tenure and resource rights; and (c) contradictions fed by international conservation agendas and neoliberal economic reforms. Combining critical actor-based analysis with practical policy critique our work illuminates how contestations over the bounding of communal territories contribute to social injustice. Keywords : commons , indigenous peoples , Nicaragua , North Atlantic Au...

In north-eastern Nicaragua, territorial titling of communal lands conflates particular notions of ethnicity with proprietary conceptions of space to generate new forms of conflict within and between indigenous and black communities, and with mestizo migrants. Notions of rights between competing groups, or within conflicting normative frameworks, become increasingly polemic during demarcation. While analysis of three land titling case studies demonstrates that results are socially contingent and place based, trends include: (a) power disparities; (b) tension between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ patterns of land tenure and resource rights; and (c) contradictions fed by international conservation agendas and neoliberal economic reforms. Combining critical actor-based analysis with practical policy critique our work illuminates how contestations over the bounding of communal territories contribute to social injustice. Keywords : commons , indigenous peoples , Nicaragua , North Atlantic Au...

This chapter explores twentieth-century Atlantic Coast history in Nicaragua during the time between the “Reincorporation” of 1894 and the Sandinista Revolution of the 1980s. This period, locally referred to as the “Company Times,” is generally presented as a golden era of economic opportunity. The end of the Company Times is consequently presented as fueling ethnic unrest and rebellion against the Sandinista. This article challenges still predominant perspectives deriving from Cold War dichotomies that pit British (and later American) benevolence against an expanding Hispanic presence culminating with the Sandinista Revolution.

Spanish has become increasingly prevalent in Bilwi, a Nicaraguan town on the northern Atlantic Coast, where many L1-Miskitu locals are now Spanish-dominant. As the community shifts towards Spanish, I investigate whether these L2-Spanish speakers are producing advanced rates of coda /s/ reduction like monolingual Nicaraguan Spanish speakers. In a comparison of the Miskitu’s reduction rates with Spanish monolinguals, I find that Miskitu speakers who learned Spanish later in life do reduce coda /s/ but diverge from monolingual reduction rates preconsonantally. I contend that salience and perceptibility can account for this difference. While monolinguals reduce /s/ the most in cue-impoverished environments, the L2 Spanish speakers reduce /s/ more where they hear the reductions the best: in cue-rich, prevocalic environments.